


No one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly

by Aaronlisa



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 16:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7514975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronlisa/pseuds/Aaronlisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willow's bitter, Tara's hopeful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No one's to blame, I know time flies so quickly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brutti_ma_buoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/gifts).



> Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon and company. The title comes from John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over." 
> 
> Prompts: Written for brutti_ma_buoni for Round #134 at Femslash_minis - Foreign Word for Love. The word/phrase requested was Cavoli riscaldati which is Italian for trying to restart a failed love affair. The elements requested were "Can't we just skip it?", misfit and petals without Seeing Red canon death, fluff. 
> 
> Notes: "Seeing Red" happened but Tara didn't die. Set post Season Seven.

It'd been a year since they had last spoken to one another. When the group had decided to deal with the new Slayers, Willow had elected to go to Brazil with Kennedy whilst Tara had opted to follow Xander to Africa. Their relationship was officially over. She had tried to move on with Kennedy but it just didn't work out. There was no real reason for why things hadn't worked out between them. It would have been nice to have a reason but what had drawn them together in the first place had been the fact that they were facing an apocalypse and death on a daily basis. Brazil was far too tame and with a heavy heart, Willow had left one day and made her way to rainy London and the new Council HQ. 

London was different than anything that she was familiar with - it was fast paced, crowded and large. It reminded Willow of why she had disliked Rio so much. She knew that part of the problem was that she was homesick. She was homesick for Sunnydale and for the way it was. Although she was in the same place as Buffy, Giles and Dawn, it wasn't the same. She felt like a misfit. She should be happy - she had access to a large library, a coven to help keep her grounded, and her best friend. But Buffy was always busy with some Slayer crisis, Giles busy with the day to day running of a large multi-continent organization and Dawn was preparing to attend Oxford. 

Willow was stuck researching in a quiet and cold library. Often by herself. She felt like she was the only one stuck in the past, already missing the good old days when everyone else was still out there living the good old days. She would lay away in her single bed and wonder what that made her when everyone else was happy with how their lives had turned out. She worried that she had peeked or perhaps she had failed to launch. She always considered heading to a shop to pick up her mother's newest parenting book that dealt with the subject but there was just too much for her to do. 

* * * 

The news that Xander and Tara were coming to the Watchers' HQ had almost given her a panic attack. She didn't think that she could handle Tara seeing her and judging who she'd become - some stuffy spinster stuck in the late 1990s. So the day of their arrival, she found herself in the garden, in a hidden spot, ripping roses apart petal by petal. Willow figured that she could use magic to set the flowers back to normal and avoid the wrath of the gardener. 

There's a noise that causes her to look up and there's Tara standing in front of her and she can't breath or think or swallow. And she feels like she's come home after running a very long and exhausting race. Then she remembers they're not like that anymore and everything just shuts down. she forces herself to look at the ground, at the emerald green grass, so that she can put on a face that doesn't give too much away. 

"Hello," Tara quietly says. "I missed you during the debriefing." 

"Oh hello," Willow responds. "There wasn't much need for me to be there." 

She can't help the bitterness that she feels. Willow knows that if she had been stuck in the hour long meeting, she would have spent it mooning over what might have been. What might have happened if she hadn't been so reliant on magic. It's all her own fault that things ended. 

"Giles said that you are their top researcher." 

Willow bites her lip from saying something mean. It's funny to hear the older man's praise coming from Tara. Especially since she's their only researcher. Sure there's some guy in Albany, NY that does research for them but it's only when they really need someone else to hit the books beside Willow. 

"That's nice," Willow says, trying to fill the awkward silence between them. 

"Are you upset with me?" Tara asks her. 

She wants to say yes, that she's very upset that her ex-girlfriend looks happy and healthy and has clearly moved on. She doesn't want them to be friends. She doesn't want them to be in the same place unless there's something more. She wants to grab Tara by the waist and kiss her over and over until the blonde feels something for her. But that's never going to happen. 

"No, I am just tired," Willow says as she stands up. 

She pushes past Tara, trying to ignore how she feels being this close to Tara. If she had made different choices maybe things would be different. She doesn't like to reminded of her failures. She ignores the rose petals that fall from her lap and to the ground .Let the gardener yell at her from her destructive behaviour. 

* * * 

It's late, near midnight and she's researching some demon for Xander. The request had come from some junior Slayer and not Xander himself. And it hurts. It tears her up and she almost refused the request. Especially after she found out that Buffy and Xander and some of the older Slayers had taken off to enjoy London's nightlife - the non-demonic variety in the form of clubs and bars. No one had thought to ask her out. 

She pushes the musty book away. Maybe she should just leave. She has enough money that she doesn't need to stay in London or with the Watchers' Council as an unpaid researcher. Let the younger Slayers do it. Willow's had enough. 

"Hello again," Tara's voice cuts through the gloom and her anger. 

"Hi," Willow says. 

"I brought you some tea," Tara tells her as she sets down the tea service. 

"Can't we just skip it," Willow says. 

"Skip what?" Tara asks. 

"This whole thing between us," Willow says as she waves a hand gesturing between them. "This is awkward and I don't really need you playing sweet and nice to me. Why aren't you with the others, having fun and dancing the night away." 

Tara looks down at the tea service. "You should know that dancing was never really my thing." 

"Fine whatever," Willow says. "Still what's the point of this? What's the point of you seeking me out in the garden to say hello or bring me tea? You made it quite clear that we were done and that there was no point in us being friends." 

"Maybe I was wrong," Tara quietly admits. "Maybe I made a hasty decision." 

"I don't want to be _friends_ ," Willow says. 

She stands up and walks out of the library before Tara can respond. She doesn't want to hear Tara's apologies and why they should be friends. 

* * * 

"What happened to you Willow?" Xander asks her as he walks into her room like he has the right. 

She looks up at him coldly. That's rich coming from him. This is the first time that he's sought her out since he's arrived. 

"Get out Xander," Willow orders him. 

"I will not get out, Willow Rosenberg," Xander says. "Not until you tell me what's wrong." 

"Nothing's wrong," Willow says. "Nothing's wrong with the fact that all of my friends are too busy for me all of the time." 

"You do get what we're up against, right Willow?" 

"Yeah we're up against the wall right now with demon armies breathing down our necks," Willow icily says. "But you and Buffy had enough time to go out clubbing." 

"We went out _clubbing_ to search for a nest of vampires." 

"You don't need to explain things to me, Xander." 

"Look we all lost a lot of things when Sunnydale became a great big crater but you were the one to suggest that we took separate paths to help find Slayers and keep them safe. It was you who said that there was no one with our unique experience." 

"Why are you bringing up old history?" 

"Never mind, Willow," Xander tells her. "But it'd be nice to see my oldest and dearest friend pull her head out of her ass long enough to realize exactly what she's throwing away." 

He leaves before she can respond. She's not the one doing the throwing away. Or maybe she is. It doesn't matter anymore. She's broken and nothing is ever going to fix things again. 

* * * 

"Xander and I are flying out tomorrow." 

Tara's voice is quiet and gentle but it still startles her. Willow looks up at her and she wants to say so many things but she's tongue-tied. 

"I was wrong but you hurt me," Tara told her. "I still loved you but you lied to me, you used magic to make me forget things, you used magic to hurt me and I get that you had a problem but I didn't know how to help you." 

"I'm sorry," Willow quietly says. 

"I know that and you apologized so many times that day when I almost died but it wasn't enough. I wasn't ready." 

"Do you have to remind me of how I fucked up and how it's too late?" Willow tiredly asks. 

"Don't be crass, that's Faith's job," Tara tells her. 

There's a ghost of a smile on her lips. Faith's about the only one that has time for her now, it's why she's decided to go to Cleveland in a month's time. Faith needs a Watcher and Willow needs to get away from the suffocating atmosphere of the Watchers' HQ. 

"I talk to Faith a lot, I can't help it if I pick up things," Willow says. "Look I don't know what you want but I don't want to rehash the past." 

"We can't have a future if we don't talk about our past," 

"There's no future for us, you made that abundantly clear after I tried to destroy the world." 

Tara sighs and steps closer to where Willow's sitting. 

"Xander and I've talked things over as have Giles and I," Tara tells her. "I understand things a little more clearly than I did before. You thought I had died. You were addicted to magic so you turned the only thing that you had left. Giles even thinks that perhaps the First was trying to use you as a way to bring about the world's destruction." 

Willow sharply inhales at that revelation. Giles has never said anything of the like to her. 

"It doesn't excuse what I did then or what I had done before." 

"I talked to some other witches and they told me that you were using advanced magic before you were ready, that you were never properly trained, that it wasn't your fault." 

"Don't whitewash things, Tara, what I did was wrong," Willow says.

"I'm not saying that it wasn't wrong or inexcusable but I am telling you that I understand a lot more than I did then." 

"Great, that's wonderful," Willow sarcastically says. "But it doesn't change things, I don't want to be friends." 

"Nor do I," Tara says. 

Before she can react, Tara's moved and she's kissing Willow in a way that makes the red-head's heart race in a way that it hasn't in a very long time.

"Look, I don't know what I want right now," Tara says when they break apart. "I know that I am going to Africa and you're going to Cleveland. It's not going to be easy but I'd like to try to get back where we were when we first met and fell in love." 

"Please don't do this to me Tara," Willow says. 

"I never stopped loving you," Tara tells her, "I don't want to be like this anymore. I want you." 

Willow presses her forehead against Tara's. It's not much but it's a start and for the first time in a long time, she feels like she might be on the right path to healing the wrongs that she committed. 

'Can we just try?" Tara asks her. 

Willow nods in agreement before kissing Tara again to seal the agreement. 

((END))


End file.
